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Answers From Steve Jobs at Apple's Shareholder Meeting
DECS writes "At today's Apple annual shareholder meeting, a series of proposals were presented for voting after which CEO Steve Jobs answered a series of questions from the audience. Jobs talked about Greenpeace, stock options, the iPhone, Mac OS X Leopard, and .Mac."
From TFA: "I wish it was just a matter of writing checks. If it was just a matter of spending money, Microsoft would deliver good products." Truer words have never been spoken. Also the oblig: In Soviet Russia, money spends Microsoft!
If he pulled it out of his front pocket (Jobs wears jeans), perhaps it's not prone to scratching or easily breakable. Maybe they learned something.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
He's almost jovial all of a sudden. Its frightening.
Nice of him to finally clear the air on the stock scandal and get the whole facts out there. Knowing the whole story now it really does look like what analysts where saying, a whole lot of nothing. Why the feds think they need to go after Apple of all companies when there a MUCH bigger fish to fry (*cough* hello big oil shutting down refineries for maintenance right after coming off of maintenance cycles to decrease production) who knows.
Also nice of him to again point out how stupid Greenpeace is. I quite enjoyed the maybe you should hire a few engineers so you can understand what the hell your talking about remark.
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Or maybe he has a thrown of iPhones in his office, and doesn't care if he scratches one at a shareholders meeting...
Maybe Mr. Jobs only "works" 10 minutes a year or so...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Great idea. Hold up Dell and HP for what they plan to do, while villifying Apple for already doing those things years ago.
The environment is an incredibly important issue that doesn't deserve the nitwits at Greenpeace.
Not a typewriter
That's what those little plastic dealies are for. Metal is malleable. If you scratch at it, it will leave a mark. It's not like it hurts the phone :)
He says it'll be released on time, but he said the same thing about the Apple TV a few weeks before they announced it would be delayed.
I'm guessing it's something to do with Leopard.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
Scratches?! These nerds are going to be rubbing the iPhone all over their oily faces and hands constantly! I hope it comes with a shammy.
"Excuse me while I whip this out..."
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Yeah, but Apple is sitting on a very large pile of cash, and they need to do something with it. Pay a dividend, set up an R&D program (I think they have a "secretive" business in Nevada named after an apple variety, which might be for this purpose), buy back shares, do something please! Any fool can put money in the bank. At least convert it to Euros or something, the dollar is getting weaker!
My opinion as an Apple shareholder (1000 shares).
The reality is that Apple and Google are the companies making the innovative, neat new products these days that we're having fun playing with. You can either accept that and have fun with the rest of us or be grumpy and effectively yell "hey you kids, get out of my yard!" I feel sorry for you if you continue to choose the latter course of action.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Oh, give us a break!
LOL!!
'Is that an iPhone in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?'
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I'm not an OS X guy, so I don't follow or know my Mac-related sites. Anyway I follow the link, and I'm reading along, and in the second Greenpeace-related paragraph I encounter:
encouraging user donations to Greenpeace to somehow solve that issue.My BullshitDetectorReadingOpinion(submission) returns a mild buzz. Next line:
After attempting to take credit for Apple's announcements (referring to the G.P. rep)sends me off on a bit of surfing of roughlydrafted.com, and googling of same said, which leads me to the conclusion that roughlydrafted.com is Daniel Eran's pulpit. Some of the 'articles' are fine and interesting, but that's not my point.
A few weeks back someone defined the difference between digg and /. as that the former is a blog aggregator+comments and the latter is a news aggregator+comments.This captures the difference for me, and makes me wonder about the submission a bit.
I suppose this is why we have arguments on /. as to whether bloggers are journalists http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/ 07/0428225.
I do admit that Mr. Eran is pretty up-front with his bias, so you know where he stands while you're reading him.
[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
Innovative? Uh, let's see -
... Edge, limited to 4 or 8 GB required storage, touch screen only, mediocre camera. Innovative - not at all (see HTC, Samsung, etc). Sort of another bizdev feat with Cingular, but not really sure how it play out in the end.
iPOD - sort of innovative. Definitely not the first MP3 player though, and it came out, what, 6 years ago?
iTMS - also sort of innovative. Not the first site offering downloads, not even paid. More of a bizdev feat negotiation the distribution contracts
Macbook - hmm, a laptop with Intel processors. Innovative? Sorry, but not really.
Mac - desktop system with Intel processors. Innovative? Again, not really.
OS X - actually pretty innovative.
Apple TV - a device that can play back a digital content from another device that gets it from the internet. Innovative? Sorry, but not at all, especially not when compared to Xbox Live and TiVo.
iPhone - not really fair since it isn't out yet, but from what we've heard
and no, Apple didn't invent ice cream, rollercoasters or the Boston Red Sox
Yeah, fo' rizzle, G.
It's all about the Linux up in my 'hood. Crackersville, New England, holla!
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
no, Apple didn't invent ice cream, rollercoasters or the Boston Red Sox
No, but they did, after a fashion, come up with 132 flavors, build the Cyclone and are coaching the Yankees.
Innovation isn't quite the same thing as invention..
Or maybe he doesn't care since he probably has an unlimited stock of them.
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
I think Greenpeace's Science - particularly with respect to greenhouse effect solutions is muddled - like the scientists don't have steering control. It would be cool if some one who's a expert and who's used to dealing with politicians (i.e who posesses a stron persona) examined exactly where they are headed and corrected that for them as it destroys their cause.
The purpose of existence is to make money.
Neither have done anything particularly innovative. Google has revolutionized the search engine. Thats it. Apple has popularized the MP3 player but hardly has innovated with it, or its computer products. Perhaps OS X gets a worthy mention, but again, thats something from ages ago.
Where is the stream of innovation? Its not there. All we are getting is hot air and fanboyism.
Greenpeace's side. We heard from them first. They started this, remember? ("Apple are teh 5uxx0rz! Clean it up already!")
Then we heard a reply from Apple ("We were already doing that, like 12 years ago, so shaddup.").
Greenpeace got their response in ("See they changed their policy because of us! We r0x0rz!").
So we have now heard from both sides.
And Apple pwned Greenpeace. FTW.
Perhaps I didn't include enough context in my quote. The poster I replied to was talking about the stock scandal, not the Greenpeace issue.
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I don't know about Apple's overall corporate standing in terms of environment, and I don't think it matters that much. The fact is: computers are bad for the environment. The best thing you can do for the environment may be not to buy a new computer at all and keep using the old one. And the worst thing for the environment may ultimately be... the power hungry software upgrades that induce people to buy new hardware.
As for Apple, I wish they'd replace their styrofoam packaging with something recycled and biodegradable. Apple's packaging is like a throwback to the 70's.
Only if you start out with all the money you could ever spend. Just joking.;)
Put identity in the browser.
They get their iPhone out
"Loooook... shiiinyyyy...." *waves in face*
thrown of iPhones
Thrown of iPhones? I didn't know they let Ballmer into the Apple offices.
Mr Jobs. You and Apple wants to get bigger, to address yourself to bigger audience, that's why were going to different areas such as mobile,or iPods. But why don't you make your changes global? We, in Israel, got a company named "Yeda" which is the importer of the Apple merchandise to Israel, and they support your products (or so they should be). Their support is lame, their prices are not even possible price so we will even think of getting a mac (mac's popularity in Israel got less then 0.1 %). And still, not because we don't want to buy (it's just 2 expensive via "Yeda" which takes your price in the U.S and double it / triple it), what would you buy 1000$ P.C or 1000$ Mac which will cost you 3000$? Also, their support is just bad, I don't know what they've offered you to import your products, but it's clear that they are doing much more damage than profit.
Think about it,
Improve the service in some countries (like Israel), and you'll get much more bigger audience.
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!!!
Even though campaigning like this is often viewed as obnoxious and the author of the article sure seemed to think so, it's motivated several big companies to clean up their act.
Case in point, Ikea, which is nowadays greener and more ethical than any number of small furniture retailers, even the mom-and-pop operations that probably sell the worst kind of child labour produced rainforest wood furniture there is.
This due to being vocal about the problems by that company and now it turns out that if you want to be an ethical shopper you have to shop at Ikea.
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
'' on the environment - no need announce environmental goals as other computer manufacturers are doing because iJobs himself thinks that doing so accomplishes nothing. ''
And that is so obviously correct, I don't know why you mention it at all.
Reducing waste helps. Announcing a goal to reduce waste doesn't help.
What is better in your opinion: Removing PVC from packaging (Apple twelve years ago) or announcing the goal to remove PVC from packaging in the next two years (HP) ? I know what's better in my opinion, and unfortunately we also know what is better according to Greenpeace.
The other option would be that Jobs never was the insane, mercurial Maniac some book authors made him out to be.
But the nitwits at Greenpeace are probably better than nothing. They attacked Apple, and now we have a public statement from Jobs as to what Apple's plans are. That's more than we had before, and we probably wouldn't have gotten it were it not for Greenpeace.
/. about how stupid Greenpeace is. It's much harder to go out there and do something.
It's of course easy to sit on your ass and comment on
I don't agree with a lot of what Greenpeace is doing. I think they have the right goals, but they often do stupid stuff. I do, however, respect them for doing something, which is much more than what I can say for myself. They are changing things for the better, and I'm glad they exist.
You're obviously utterly missing what's innovative about Apple's stuff. It's not that they have the latest and greatest tech (they often do, but it's not important). The innovative stuff is how they design the user interaction.
You can get pretty phones from LG. They do more and cost less than the iPhone. The problem is that the UI sucks.
Either you were not around during Yahoo! and Altavista, or you, dunno... are insane? How is pagerank not innovative?
the iRack and the iRan?
Sheldon
Well... they clearly don't let him in anymore. Would you if he threw you cell phone?
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
I never quite understood the claim of the iPhone being easily scratchable. Yes the iPod's plastic screen scratches as does a Palm. Yet my Motorola SLVR sits in my pocket all the time and never scratches due to its glass screen. I'd venture to guess that the iPhone's screen will be made of glass as well to avoid scratches.
Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
That's what the art of negotiation is all about. Whatever we ask for we won't get. It'll be negotiated down to something in the middle. That's why Green Peace is important. They ask for more than they expect to get and then negotiate down.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
We have a word for people acting very much like Greenpeace in Argentina: Piqueteros
While they arise some good valid points and concerns, they do not bring any solution to the table.
I agree with the other reply to this post--Greenpeace is worse than nothing. Their raving lunacy makes the oil industry look like the sensible ones. There are ways to promote environmental issues in a calm, reasonable manner, but this has been made nearly impossible, because you'll just get lumped in with Greenpeace.
As for "it's of course easy to sit on your ass and comment on /. about how stupid Greenpeace is", you don't know me or the projects I've researched and undertaken along these lines.
Not a typewriter
I put Greenpeace in the same category as PeTA - pushing their respective movements backwards, because they make everyone think that anyone who cares about the environment (or animals) is as batshit insane as they are. Spending more money on publicity for their crackpot campaigns than on actually helping anyone. Preaching to their little mostly-teenaged choir, not noticing that the masses are backing away slowly, not only from them but from other legitimate groups that just happen to share a few surface features but actually do a lot of good.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
As far as the environment is concerned, that's not "more than we had before". Steve Jobs just stated what Apple was already doing and more of its plans for the future. Saying words doesn't help the environment; action does. The point is Apple was already doing much more than HP or Dell, but Greenpeace praised HP and Dell for saying they were planning to do something but condemned Apple because they didn't make a lot of noise about what the plan to do while ignoring the fact that Apple was actually taking action and had been for years. Instead IMHO, Greenpeace should have acknowledge the efforts Apple had already made and asked for plans on future improvements, and chastised HP and Dell for only making plans and not doing anything (or enough) yet.
Read the summary, it's undoubtedly him talking about .mac, specifically iDisk. ;)
Comment of the year
Negotiate? They don't negotiate, they sue, picket, and harass.
The big problem with Greenpeace on the e-waste is that they knew the levels of key toxins in Apple's products were ahead of others, but ranked them lower because they weren't telling anyone about it. Seriously... If I was Greenpeace, I would be bashing Dell and HP for not getting off their duff and doing it faster.
I hope you're not working in any position where you design user interfaces - although I guess that, unfortunately, many people who do design UIs think like you do. You're wrong, of course. Usability is not subjective. It's measurable.
I'm not entirely sure you actually mean to say that usability is subjective. You're right when you say that different interfaces make different use cases simple. And yes, there will be cases where other phones are easier to use than the iPhone. But given Apple's track record, I expect the iPhone to be one of the - if not the - easiest to use phones on average.
Did you catch the PETA release a few weeks ago saying we should kill our family dogs and cats because it's cruel to keep them n "slavery"? Or something like that, I forget exactly because I blew it off do to its total wackiness, but you reminded me of it.
Backing away slowly will soon turn into full fledged running, methinks.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Ah, but that would be about actually accomplishing something, rather than publicity about how much you say you CARE. Greenpeace gets a lot more publicity by ranting and pulling off goofy stunts attacking the high-profile Apple than by praising those who are already doing a lot.
It's obvious to me that Greenpeace cares more about getting their name in the press than in actually helping the environment. Unfortunately, a lot of organizations lose sight of what they claim are their principles when it comes time to decide between publicity and effectiveness.
God, I love that kind of hyperbole. You can practically smell the fear and obedience coiling off it, the fumes as it were blinding the writer to the placement of apostrophes.
Sure, fanboyism pretty much selects for monochromatic points of view. The point is always to circle the wagons and defend the ideal (not to mention the stock). Criticism can rarely be brooked; you'll notice the same about more than a few churches and political parties.
But this time out... Heh. Even measured against most ecstatic fanboyism, the headline takes honors: it's like something from the old Pravda, where the writers would whip out the superlatives whenever some gasbag was sober long enough to wheeze up a few words at a podium. Premier Brezhnev Challenges West's Mendacity and Corruption, etc. (But never the subhead: Later, impregnates terrified farmer's daughter in limousine behind silo.) True believers are always ready to fall to the knee praising the official line. What's amusing though perhaps also a little sad is how much alike, finally, in their rabidness are the commie and the capitalist stooge when the knee is bent!
The simple rebuttal to Jobs' snark is that it doesn't require an engineer to see that Apple pollutes, pollutes extravagantly, and has been exposed as such behind its veil of carefully manufactured, commodified hip. That's the issue--not whether Greenpeace has been overly generous to other companies. Greenpeace's failings aren't transmuted into Apple strengths. If they were, Jobs would have laughed off rather than acquiesced to the reform campaign.
I'm pleased to see Apple cleaning up its act. A shame it can't do so less bitterly, or without its choirs bugling hysterically when it finally acts on a long overdue responsibility. And how petty of Premier Jobs to act sore because the Greenpeace campaign has rung a bell with many of the company's consumers.
What did he expect? After years of assiduously professing to be "different" and, by attachment to certain cultural icons who appeared in the ads, "better," Apple's consumers have come to expect that might mean something larger than, say, the difference between the Finder and Windows Explorer. Such are the perils of corporate identity. And such is the price of courting liberals, Steve: in order to stay in their good graces, you actually have to practice some liberalism from time to time.